8- Home


"Honda. You have a phone call in the office."

"Okay." She runs out of the library and I sigh. It's probably her grandpa, letting her know that the remodel is done. School's out, so we go home once she finishes in the office. I go to my room and sit on the bed.

"This is my grandfather's address. I'll give it to you for now."

"You're finally leaving tomorrow? Thank you so much for taking such good care of us."

"No, I should thank you! I'll take the Sohma secret to my grave. I'll never tell anyone!"

"Just do your best in your new home too."

"I will! I won't allow for sadness." She gets up and leaves the house. This is depressing.

"I thought you'd stop her."

"Why? We knew it was only until the remodeling was finished."

"It's better this way. It's not right for an outsider to be here anyway." All four of us are depressed.


It feels like a funeral home. I get up and start for the door, grabbing the address on my way.

"Minako-san, where are you going?"

"To bring her back."

"Don't do that! That's her family. I'm sure she's happy to be back with them."

"That's not her family. They may be blood, but they've never been around her. They don't know how to deal with her when she's happy, or sad, or angry. They don't know her and they're not her family. She belongs with her family. People that love her and know her. She belongs here." I leave the house and start hunting for that house.

"Wait up!" Kyo-kun and Yuki-kun run out of the house and catch up to me.

"We'll bring her back together." I smile and we start out.


"We're lost."

"It's her stupid handwriting! Give me the map!"

"Urusei, Baka Neko. I think we took a wrong turn back there." My sense of navigation sucks. I look up.

"We're here."

"What?" I point at the sign on the fence and hold up the address.

"We're here."

"Let's go in then." I nod and we go inside the house.

"If I live here, I'll be miserable. But that's not right. Oka-san loved me and I have three wonderful friends. And grandpa is so generous to let me live with him. I only have things to be grateful for.

"I'm very blessed. But even so, I want to go back. I miss Sohma-kun's house so much. I want to learn more about Sohma-kun and Kyo-kun. I want to have dinner with them and talk about so many things. I didn't really want. I hated to leave. I wanted to stay. I wanted to stay, with Sohma-kun, and Kyo-kun, and Kashi-chan, and Shigure-san."

"I think it's time you came home." Yuki-kun steps in front of Tohru-chan and smiles.

"Who is that?" Kyo-kun grabs Tohru-chan's forehead and pulls her back.

"You…let's go!"

"Kyo-kun but…! Kyo-kun you came too!"

"The door was unlocked so we let ourselves in. Tohru-chan's things are upstairs right?"

"Wait just one second! Who are you? What do you think you're doing here?"

"We came to get Honda-san."

"Eh? You're the men Tohru-chan was living with?" I poke the guy on the forehead.

"Don't call her Tohru-chan like you're her friend."

"Lowlife." We go upstairs and get her things.

"At least she doesn't have much stuff." We carry her things out of the house and start after Tohru-chan and Kyo-kun. We stop and Yuki-kun smiles at Tohru-chan. She smiles back and we walk home, with Tohru-chan holding their hands. I'm walking beside, Kyo-kun and he manages to end up holding my hand as well.


"Congratulations on operation kidnap the princess!"

"Shigure-san, you make it sound like we did something wrong."

"At least call it a rescue."

"Um, I'm back. I hope that's not a problem."

"Yes, yes. It's alright. Leave all your worries to me."

"I can't cause you any more problems!"

"Tohru-chan, no problems. Just don't go running away on us again. You should have seen those two! They practically killed me to get hold of that address."

"It's so nice to see that their efforts were rewarded. I'd never seen Yuki-kun so flustered."

"I wasn't that flustered!"

"Liar."

"You were moping around like a rat that lost his cheese." Yuki-kun goes to hit me, in retaliation for my words and I duck.

"You and Kyo were the ones moping." He manages to hit Kyo in the same swing and it starts a fight.

"Damn Yuki!" I resist grabbing Kyo-kun to stop him.

"Kyo-kun! Stop that or you'll break the house again!"

"This time I'm taking you down!"

"Oh it's on now."

"Boys! Stop this!" I step in the middle of the fight and grab them both by the throat. "That's enough!"

"Okay, okay. Let go!"

"Choking, not breathing, Minako-san!" I let go and glare at them.

"Welcome home, Tohru-chan!" She nods and we start carrying things up to her room.

"Were they really that upset?" I nod.

"Yuki-kun went out to the garden, he was going to plant those ichigos and I figured he'd want some help planting them, so I went out to help and he was sitting on a rock staring at the garden and the ichigos were sitting on the ground beside him. And Kyo-kun was on the roof sulking. I got fed up with it after we all ate lunch and I left to get you. They decided to go with me and nearly killed each other trying to find the stupid place."

"Thank you, Kashi-chan." I smile.

"If there's one thing that I learned from Oka-san, it's that it doesn't matter if you're blood or not, your family will always be there for you. It's pretty weird, but in the month or so that we've lived here, Tohru-chan, those guys have become our family." She nods.

"Yea."